On the subject of mice and mousetraps, I am aware I may not be popular for saying so, but the humane ones often aren't the answer......sadly. I think you need to take the captured mouse some distance away from your property (couple of miles at least) and preferably over water, before you can reasonable be sure it won't return. And a wise mouse can nip into a humane trap, eat your bait, and then rock its way back out. I have it on video. I will put up with them up to a point but when they start to eat food, boxes, toys (actual stuff!) then its bye bye mousey I'm sorry to say. Just the odd potter in the house for a warm and a crumb I can live with but that's it. And yes.......you would think it would bother with a dog in the house.
My oh often mumbles about the house being full if apex predators who are usless. When we had Colin the barbarian we had no mice rats or frogs but the rest of the cats were too delicate or unconcerned. We used to take any mice we caught out on the motor bike into the country and let them go.
Apparently. I used to take them about a mile and a half down the road and over a small burn. Close to some other cottages as it happens That's until they learned to escape.
After weeks or nagging, pleading, and begging for a real Christmas tree, OH surprised me last night by saying we're going to pick our own today and chop it down ourselves. I'm so excited. But I've just had a moment of horror - what if Stanley cocks his leg on it
For our first real tree 6 years ago we had to buy a heavy weight water trough and a stand, which cost more than the actual tree itself. I've pointed out to OH that it would be a false economy to have a fake tree and not have at least 10 years use out of the stand . It always works